CANADA Canada - Christine Jessop, 9, Queensville, Ont, 3 Oct 1984 - #1

[Dedpanman]

Uncredited police photograph of Christine's sweater (or sweatshirt) with knife cuts.

Note how small the cuts in the fabric are - so small they're almost invisible. The knife that made them was also responsible for the other injuries...?

 

[Woodland]

Thanks for the photos Dedpanman! Wonder why they were left out of the revised edition.

It's heart wrenching to look at the sweatshirt. The holes are very small - it's hard to fathom they were made by a knife - the wrong shape? Even a screwdriver seems to big to have made them.

There were two holes in the skin left on her torso, the origin seems to have remained unidentified and nicks on at least five ribs. I can see why there was disagreement at the second autopsy.

 

[Woodland]

Ice pick?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/01/nyregion/ice-picks-are-still-used-as-weapons.html

 

[ttcRider]

the Fifth Estate will do a followup story on Christine tonight at 9pm

 

[Dedpanman]

For anyone interested in this case, check out the following sources:

REDRUM: THE INNOCENT (First Edition) and REDRUM: THE INNOCENT (Revised Edition) by Kirk Makin. This book is the definitive true crime book of this case. It's well-written and filled with detailed information. The book lacks an index and this can be frustrating at times when you are trying to quickly locate details and specific facts.

NOTE: The differences between the two editions are significant. Details, information, and whole chapters are different. The First Edition is over 800 pages long and includes photographs. The Revised Edition is 648 pages. In other words, there is a lot of interesting and potentially valuable tidbits of information (and suspects!) in the First Edition that were not carried forward into the Revised Edition. The First Edition ends essentially at the end of Morin’s second trial - so there is more information leading up to that point. When Makin revised the book, a chapter was dropped and the book was combed and trimmed all over the place. I suspect that since the book was “sized up” (in terms of page size) it became more expensive for the publisher to produce, and since photographs add to the cost (special paper and printing) they were dropped from the Revised Edition.

At this point, I consider them two separate books and any serious researcher should have and read them both.

THE COMMISSION ON PROCEEDINGS INVOLVING GUY PAUL MORIN (commonly known as the Kaufman Report) is filled with information and is available online in PDF format.

JOURNEY INTO DARKNESS by John Douglas (pages 78 -85). Douglas provides a profile of the perpetrator based on his involvement in the case. Douglas's findings are controversial and contain flaws, but his take is still useful.

Not yet released:

REAL JUSTICE: GUILTY OF BEING WEIRD: THE STORY OF GUY PAUL MORIN by Cynthia J. Faryon. This book won't be published until later this month. It looks a little thin, but it might be useful if it contains new information not found in the previous materials.

 

[Dedpanman]

the Fifth Estate will do a followup story on Christine tonight at 9pm

The episode is called: Kingston Pen: Secrets and Lies

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/2012-2013/2012/09/kingston-pen-secrets-and-lies.html

The program will focus on the history of the Kingston Penitentiary and some of its more famous inmates. There will be a section concerning Guy Paul Morin. (See link above.)

 

[Dedpanman]

SUSPECT: “BILL LAROCQUE” (pseudonym)


From Redrum: The Innocent (First Edition):
(point form notes from pgs 807-810, some notes rearranged for clarity)

- in 1993 (after GPM’s second trial and conviction) a retired social worker named Ben Jarvenpaa who had worked for Brock Family and Child Services in 1984, came forward to say that when Christine Jessop’s body had been found he had immediately contacted Durham police to tell them about a youth named Bill Larocque
- Bill Larocque – an unpleasant delinquent, had been placed in foster home a couple miles west along the Fourth Concession Road from the body site
- the foster home was a remote farm owned by a couple who regularly kept three or four foster children in their care
- Larocque was 16 years old at the time but had mature features and a beard
- Looked like someone in their 20’s
- Was a heavy smoker
- Could be charming or tough
- Was described by another social worker as very mature and glib
- Had the gift of the gab
- Was very badly battered as a child
- He used to say: “Someone stole my childhood”
- In the spring of 1984, while living at the foster home, Larocque had been expelled from high school for assaulting the principal
- After the expulsion, Larocque took to roaming the Sunderland area
- Jarvenpaa told police that he “knew all the roads and fields”
- Larocque and a friend were apprehended for breaking into a trailer located in the bush several miles away from the foster home (echoes of the Culls’ trailer being broken into?)
- Behaved in a smug manner when he pleaded guilty to the trailer break in
- Larocque’s foster parents became unnerved by his behaviour
- Another boy in the foster home told the foster parents that Larocque had stolen his hunting knife
- One night, his foster parents found him hiding naked in the room of another child in the home – a 12-year-old girl
- He had been having sex with her
- Larocque was immediately removed from the foster home
- Placed in a group home in Queensville
- This move to Queensville took place in the summer of 1984 – a few months before Christine disappeared
- All summer long, Larocque frequently returned to Sunderland area to hang out
- Makin surmises that Larocque probably knew of the body-site area
- Makin also surmises that he had “undoubtedly” seen Christine in Queensville
- When Jarvenpaa inquired to the police later on - after his initial call - he was told that Laroque had been the main suspect in the investigation from January to March of 1985, but attention had shifted to GPM
- Police told Jarvenpaa that Larocque had an alibi and was dropped as a suspect
- The alibi was furnished by the group home in Queensville
- The group home supposedly had a log book that showed Larocque had been home when Christine was abducted
- Makin questions whether the log book was correct or not
- Makin speculates that the log book could easily have been altered
- Jarvenpaa had serious doubts about the murder investigation hinging on a log book
- After Morin’s first trial acquittal, Jarvenpaa contacted police again about Larocque’s viability as a suspect and was brushed off by police
- Jarvenpaa felt that police were too hasty to clear Larocque on the basis of the log book entry
- The other social worker confirmed that the group home in Queensville was known in the business to be very “laid back” – a euphemism for the kind of place where rules were elastic and staff were indistinguishable from the youths

 

[Lacrosse]

Does anyone know what happened to "bill larocque"? Any criminal activity later in his life?

 

[Dedpanman]

My random thoughts on The Fifth Estate episode: “Kingston Pen: Secrets and Lies” (broadcast Friday, September 21, 2012 at 9:00 pm on CBC stations in Canada):

I can’t believe that just a few pages earlier on this thread I was suggesting that The Fifth Estate do exactly what they did tonight. A full episode would have been ideal, but this was still pretty good. They devoted a big chunk of their show to GPM’s story of wrongful conviction, but then they did a sizeable segment on the unsolved case and the possibility and hope of still catching Christine’s killer.

Not sure if I believe Detective Sergeant Steven Ryan who insisted the case was still open and active and that the case was solvable because “we do have DNA”. I wished they had pressed harder with questions to clarify that. Ryan seemed to fumble his words at times but insisted that the case was only “one phone call away from being solved.”

I was intrigued to learn that private investigator Basil Mangano is still searching for Christine’s killer. He seems as obsessed as we all are and said, “I think it’s still solvable.”

I have to say I got a chill when they showed Mangano sitting on the Queensville cemetery bench looking out to the farm fields west of the cemetery contemplating the case. I had recently sat on that same bench doing the same thing this summer. I wonder if it was before or after they filmed there?

I think they showed a video clip of the police moving Christine’s body on the board in one of the split screen segments. I PVR’d the episode so I was able to study sections of the show carefully. There was snow on the ground and three men were dragging a covered slab through small cedar trees. If I’m wrong – then what the hell was that?

I was intrigued when they showed Mangano going to the body site as it is today (someone’s laneway) and through computer graphics – showed where the approximate location of the Culls’ trailer, where Christine’s body was, and something I have never come across:

That there was a vehicle parked north of where her body was found, just off to the side of the tractor trail and that this vehicle would have been visible from the road. It was implied by Mangano that this vehicle was permanently there on the property at the time Christine's body was dumped there.

This has significant implications and Mangano made them explicit. This vehicle, seen from the road, would probably deter anyone who was not familiar with the property from turning off Concession Four and driving down the tractor trail on a whim, because it would look like someone might be there at the property. So, the killer, whoever he was, must have known that that vehicle had been there for a long time and that the location was secluded enough to commit murder and mutilation. Mangano believes the police did not focus enough attention on the Sunderland area and the connection the perpetrator had to the body dump site. Mangano implied that that connection is what will finally lead to the perpetrator.

Linden MacIntyre ended the Christine Jessop segment with this:

“Somebody, somewhere knows someone who has a very dark secret.”

Maybe this episode will shake up a new clue? Maybe someone will be inspired to pick up the phone and make a call that will change everything?

One can only hope.

 

[Woodland]

'BL' would have needed a vehicle. Having his own vehicle does not sound reasonable given his circumstances. Would someone lend him one? He had the right weapon with him? He kept her body somewhere and moved her to Sunderland or went straight to Sunderland? If he went straight to Sunderland, he had a lot of blood on him that would have been difficult to clean up. Jmo.

 

[Woodland]

It was pretty good of The Fifth Estate to dedicate ten or more minutes to Christine's unsolved case - focusing on her alone.

Dedpanman - I was hoping you or someone would write that observation on Det Sgt Steve Ryan. He very much stumbled over his words - was he nervous? Why would a seasoned Toronto Detective be nervous or stumble when talking about a 28 year-old case?

Was he being asked to talk about a case he was not familiar with? Or was he not being truthful? I'm glad Ryan left that question in people's minds and I thank him from the bottom of my heart.

If the family I told Toronto LE about in my phone call had been ruled out by DNA, why would Det Ray Zarb call me back and ask about the son? It would have been a waste of time if DNA ruled him out. Zarb said the son had been investigated or looked at in this case. No voluntary DNA sample from him?

Why refuse to tell the public what the process was to get a DNA sample from the crime scene into the databank? Only the process was requested.

 

[Woodland]

I enjoyed watching and listening to Basil Mangano. He's very camera friendly - no visible shell shock there when he spoke about the case.

The vehicle parked on the Sunderland property and the implications that go with that are stunning. The killer knew regardless he would not be observed. I agree there will be a connection there somewhere in the past.

Did not understand Mangano's insistence that Christine was taken from the park and only the park. In his opinion, she walked there with her recorder?

He's is dedicated to the case and hopefully a tip will be phoned in that he or someone can look into.

 

[ttcRider]

What is beyong the trailer? How far back does that 'road' go? My question is if the murderer knew the area and knew no one was there would he not take Christine deeper into the woods past the trailer? Or perhaps he chose that spot so she could be easily found?

 

[Dedpanman]

What is beyong the trailer? How far back does that 'road' go?

The tractor trail opened up into a wide open field once past the Culls' trailer. Although my diagram on page 6 of this post has a few small errors, it's essentially correct. I will modify it soon, add the vehicle, the outhouse, the picnic table, the bench, to make it more correct and re-post.

My question is if the murderer knew the area and knew no one was there would he not take Christine deeper into the woods past the trailer? Or perhaps he chose that spot so she could be easily found?

I think it's simple logistics and human nature. Why go further into the woods if he didn't need to? He felt safe and free to do whatever he wanted. The actual spot he chose, just off the trail and in a "vestibule" of small cedar trees, allowed for some cover.

I suspect that he didn't really care about her being found or not. He did what he wanted and left her there like she was just some garbage.

 

[Dedpanman]

Did not understand Mangano's insistence that Christine was taken from the park and only the park. In his opinion, she walked there with her recorder?

Yes, I've been thinking constantly about that, too. It's like he's thinking, what's the simplest scenario that could account for her disappearance? She walked to the store with her recorder, purchased her gum, walked to the park...

And then minutes later Leslie Chipman shoes up... and she's not there.

So, the killer was there in the park, with a car.

Maybe it's an over-simplification, but it's possible.
He has to eliminate the variable of the bicycle to make that theory work. I wonder why? Christine didn't take her bike because she didn't think to put her recorder in her back pocket or in the bicycle carrier so she could ride there...?

(shrug)

I just don't understand why no one saw anything there at the park at such a busy time of day.

Remember, the Horwoods are driving right past there within the time-frame.
But, I guess it goes without saying the perpetrator was really damned lucky.

Cemetery theory is still viable, but there's elegance to his park theory. There are still some wrinkles though, and still some head-scratching to make that viable.

 

[Dedpanman]

Woodland, what about contacting Mangano about your suspect and information...?

 

[ttcRider]

I hadnt realized how far the store was from her home.. riding her bike there would have made sense. More time to play if she didnt have to make the long trek back home.

 

[Woodland]

I did once. We had a lengthy conversation but he didn't care for the idea of Christine being taken from her home and initially only taken a short distance away. He didn't seem to know the family I spoke of - but he should have if Janet, Bob and Christine knew him and had contact with him on some fairly regular basis.

Imo, Mangano should have looked at anyone who could have known Bob was not around. In a small town, I think more people knew that than what was realized or accepted.

 

[Woodland]

Was pondering Det Sgt Ryan appearing rather young looking in the new Fifth Estate episode. That's good of course, but something seemed different to me.

Here is a shot of him from March 2012.

http://toronto.ctvnews.ca/father-stepmother-charged-in-cold-case-homicide-1.784877

The Fifth Estate had many shots in this episode from the past. Just wondering.

 

[ttcRider]

Still stuck on the bike... was it broken to the point she couldnt ride it or was it just minor? I am trying to get past my thoughts that she was abducted from her home. I certainly would have taken my bike if I could have instead of walking. Carrying her recorder is no big deal; it could even dangle from the bars.. The timeline is so tight.